On Media

Nico Pitney out, Jimmy Soni in at HuffPost

By DYLAN BYERS

01/10/2012 02:31 PM EST

Capital New York's Joe Pompeo reports that Jimmy Soni, Arianna Huffington's 26-year-old chief of staff, will replace Nico Pitney as managing editor of The Huffington Post. That puts Soni, who has been at the website for just nine months, in the No. 3 editorial position under Huffington and Roy Sekoff. But from what the internal announcement tells us, Soni is something of a renaissance man:

Born in Toulouse, France, and a graduate of Duke University, Jimmy is trilingual – French, Hindi, and English – an avid marathon (and barefoot!) runner, a swing dancer, and the author of a new book coming out this fall on Cato the Younger, a Roman Senator most famous for opposing Caesar.

The announcement also says that Pitney — often remembered for one infamous exchange with President Barack Obama — is leaving "as a result" of his decision to relocate to San Francisco. Though given that Arianna lived in Los Angeles until last year, its possible a No. 3 would have been offered similar privileges. (I've asked Huffington Post's communications team about that — update here, if and when I hear back.)

For now, no immediate changes at The Huffington Post, barring the possible addition of a HuffPost Barefoot Running page. Pompeo's full story, here.

In other HuffPo news, Forbes's Jeff Bercovici reports that chief technology officer Paul Berry will leave to focus on his own start-up at the end of next month.

CORRECTION: I initially mischaracterized Pitney's exchange with Obama in 2009. The White House was aware of the topic — but not the content — of Pitney's question before it was asked.